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However, it is not clear to me, from reading the Nobel lecture, exactly how it could be that the aboriginal Friday could be writing, even if he was \" the aptest scholar there ever was\" ; nor how he would know anything at all about Boston.

Ahhh, I see now --Robinson & his man are back in England at the time of the writing :

\"When he came back to England from his island with his parrot and his parasol and his chest full of treasure, he lived for a while tranquilly enough with his old wife on the estate he bought in Huntingdon, for he had become a wealthy man, and wealthier still after the printing of the book of his adventures. But the years in the island, and then the years traveling with his serving-man Friday (poor Friday, he laments to himself, squawk-squawk, for the parrot would never speak Friday\'s name, only his), had made the life of a landed gentleman dull for him. And, if the truth be told, married life was a sore disappointment too. He found himself retreating more and more to the stables, to his horses, which blessedly did not chatter, but whinnied softly when he came, to show that they knew who he was, and then held their peace.\"

Explanation:"In the evening by candlelight he will take out his papers and sharpen his quills and write a page or two of his man"
Another quote from the speech. Crusoe is both writing and reading these 'reports'.

Explanation:A second take, stimulated by your later question about a pebble and a blade.
Daniel Defoe, the author of 'Robinson Crusoe', also wrote 'A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain'. In that book, Defoe refers to Boston as "a handsome well-built sea port town". The book as a whole could be viewed as a series of reports of the sort being written by 'his man' and read by Crusoe in the document you are translating.

However, it is not clear to me, from reading the Nobel lecture, exactly how it could be that the aboriginal Friday could be writing, even if he was \" the aptest scholar there ever was\" ; nor how he would know anything at all about Boston.

Ahhh, I see now --Robinson & his man are back in England at the time of the writing :

\"When he came back to England from his island with his parrot and his parasol and his chest full of treasure, he lived for a while tranquilly enough with his old wife on the estate he bought in Huntingdon, for he had become a wealthy man, and wealthier still after the printing of the book of his adventures. But the years in the island, and then the years traveling with his serving-man Friday (poor Friday, he laments to himself, squawk-squawk, for the parrot would never speak Friday\'s name, only his), had made the life of a landed gentleman dull for him. And, if the truth be told, married life was a sore disappointment too. He found himself retreating more and more to the stables, to his horses, which blessedly did not chatter, but whinnied softly when he came, to show that they knew who he was, and then held their peace.\"